Celebrities have lost their battle to stop a Candy Crush executive excavating a giant “iceberg” basement extension at his £4 million home.

Former England footballer Lee Dixon and ex-Newsnight presenter Peter Snow were among wealthy neighbours who opposed the proposals.

But Nick Pointon, a top executive at Candy Crush games-maker King, and his wife Claire have now been given the green light to build a 1,700 square feet basement below their three-storey Edwardian terraced property.

Dixon, Mr Snow, children’s author Judith Kerr and composer Howard Goodall were among more than 100 residents in Barnes, south west London, who sent letters to Richmond Council, objecting to the scheme.

Nick Pointon's £4million house (Image: SWNS.com)

Plans for house expansion (Image: SWNS.com)

But the local authority’s planning committee members voted in favour of the proposal at a meeting on Wednesday evening.

The plans, first submitted in October 2015, will increase the property’s total floor space by almost 50 per cent.

Arsenal legend Dixon, 52, who lives on the same road as the Pointons, said in his letter: “I feel the digging out of basements in the area which has become frequent is contributing to an unstable foundation within the Lions Houses region.”

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The ITV football pundit added: “Many houses in the area including mine are suffering from subsidence to some degree.”

Mr Snow, 78, said: “The original architects of these fine and substantially weighty buildings would be flabbergasted if they knew that anyone contemplated digging out basements underneath the houses they designed over 100 years ago.

Former Newsnight host Peter Snow (Image: SWNS.com)

“These houses were never built on strong enough ground to accommodate the building of basements.”

Mr Pointon, 46, who is on sabbatical from his role as vice president of finance for King, said earlier this month that he had been “unfairly targeted” by a “coordinated neighbourhood campaign”.